Vacation Adventures

One of my favorite times of day at the beach is dawn. Walking on the sand, watching the birds, seeing the sun rise.

When you walk in sand with shoes, you leave the tracks of them, and every shoe has a distinctive pattern. Work boots worn by the park rangers who patrol the whole island leave a very simple line of straight ridges. Up in the sky, I saw clouds in that pattern, in the shape of boot prints, tracking across the blue. It looked like a giant had walked in the sand, gotten it in the ridges of his boot soles, and then tracked it across the skies on his way home.

Another thing I love is watching the highest clouds turn pink, then golden, while the lower ones are still just gray shadows. As the sun comes up, they change color from top to bottom, east edge to west, until they whole blue is crossed by white fluff. It is a beautiful thing to see.

I've always been a morning person, but I believed sunsets were prettier than sunrises because they are more colorful. Then I started watching the subtle changes that sunrise brings at the shore.


Today is

Accident Day

Bunker Hill Day, Massachusetts

Eat All of Your Vegetables Day

Father's Day, Ecuador and Guatemala

Independence Day, Iceland

Lily Festival, Japan

Ludi Piscatari -- Ancient Roman Calendar, fishermen's festival

National Apple Struedel Day

Pirate Radio Day

Recess at Work Day

St. Herve's Day (patron of the blind)

Toadstool-Squatting begins -- Fairy Calendar, of the Leprechauns

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought


Birthdays Today:

Mark Walker, 1999
Lee Ryan, 1983
Venus Williams, 1980
Dan Jansen, 1965
Joe Piscopo, 1951
Barry Manilow, 1946
Art Bell, 1945
Newt Gingrich, 1943
Gene De Paul, 1919
Ralph Bellamy, 1904
M.C. Escher, 1898
Igor Stravinsky, 1882


Today in History:

Vlad III the Impaler (a/k/a Vlad Dracul or Count Dracula) attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia, 1462
Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru, 1565
Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England, 1579
Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth; her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spends more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal, 1631
The Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775
In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the Edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands, 1839
1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory, 1876
The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor, 1885
The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT, 1901
"Barney Google" cartoon strip, by Billy De Beck, premieres, 1919
Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic, 1944
The Wooden Roller Coaster at Playland, which is in the Pacific National Exhibition, Vancouver, Canada opens; it is still open today, 1958
The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress, 1961
Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel, 1972
With the death of the last individual, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow becomes extinct, 1987
The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act, which had required racial classification of all South Africans at birth, 1991